ATHENS: Ratings firm Fitch has kept Greece’s high-risk credit rating unchanged. The agency says the risk that the eurozone country will default on its debt is a real possibility.
Fitch Ratings has affirmed the ‘CCC’ rating it gave debt-riddled Greece in late March in a two-notch downgrade from ‘B’. ‘Lack of market access, uncertain prospects of timely disbursement from official institutions, and tight liquidity conditions in the domestic banking sector are putting extreme pressure on Greek government funding,’ it said.
‘We expect that the government will survive the current liquidity squeeze without running arrears on privately held bonds, but default is a real possibility.’ Since the Fitch rating downgrade in March, negotiations between Greece and its official creditors – the European Union, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund – have stumbled while the financial situation of the new radical Syriza-led government has continued to deteriorate.
